Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is rated a Buy in a new report from Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) studying the processor market in the United States. The report indicated that the strength of Intel in the second half of the year will likely take away from Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) sales, further troubling that company’s investors.
The key to increasing Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) dominance of the desktop processor market will, according to the report, be the release of the company’s Haswell chips in the second half of 2013. Those chips will bring with them a substantial increase in efficiency, further blurring the lines between mobile and desktop processors.
That release will be the key to Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) performance this year. In the first half, as we’ve already seen from the firm’s first quarter earnings report, Intel is likely to just sail along, but in the second half of the year it is hoped that the release of a new processor generation will stem the losses in the PC market.
One thing is clear, even in a depressed PC market, Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is still performing better than its old rival, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD). We saw in the earnings report that Intel managed to reach its highest share of all time in the PC market, despite falling sales. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) is being disproportionately hit, and that is likely to get worse with the Haswell release.
Shares in Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) have fallen by more than 60 percent in the last twelve months as the firm looks increasingly less likely to recover from a poor decade. The company, at a market cap of $2 billion, should not even be compared to Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) by right. Intel plans to spend $13 billion on capital expenditure alone this year, but old habits die hard.
Closer to the turn of the century the companyies seemed to split the PC market in half, and both seemed to be regularly making technological breakthroughs. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) innovation now seems to have dried up, and investors are fleeing the firm’s stock.
Haswell may be the generation of chips that finally stops analysts talking about these to firms in the same sentence. Intel should be compared to its real rivals, those companies like QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) which beat the firm on mobile innovation. About 85% of PCs sold in the first quarter had Intel chips.
